LITMIR.BIZ

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he now notices cigarette butts; they don’t appear to be especially old.

      The second time the figure rises, the reflection is in a different place—across the pool, nearer the opposite bank, surfacing between the trunks of trees. Asada looks away, at the mill. The lower windows are empty. He looks up, to the window above.

      It is the figure of a woman, standing thin and dark. Steady, unmoving, hands held out in front. It is difficult to make out the face’s expression, to tell if the features are Asian or otherwise. The long hair is tangled, hanging across the face. The dress is loose, or perhaps it’s a kimono; it hangs as if wet. The figure appears to have just climbed out of the water.

      And then the window is empty. Asada almost calls out, but he does not. There are rules, he feels; calling out might simplify the situation, and that is not what he desires. Waiting, trying to remain patient, he wonders if someone standing in the trees, somewhere farther up the slope, might cast their image into the pool so it was reflected upward, so it appeared in the window. No, he decides—if that were the case, the figure would have been upside down.

      Asada sets his fishing pole on the ground. Wading, tripping through the bushes, breaking low branches in his hands, he heads around the back of the mill. The wooden door has a lock attached to it, but the hasp has been torn from the wall. The bottom of the door is sunken into the ground; he manages to bend the top enough to wedge his way through.

      There is no one else inside. Above, there is the sky, no roof at all. There is no remnant of a second floor, either—not even a ledge beneath the upper window, twenty feet above. No place anyone could stand. Asada steps over crushed, faded beer cans, over the ashes of an old fire. A trickle of water enters under one wall, slips away beneath another. Standing at one of the low windows, he looks out across the pond, to where his fishing pole rests, next to his sweater, which is folded on the white stones. He bends his neck and looks up the smooth wall, at the high window. If he wants the figure to return, he decides, it would be best to return outside, to stand where he had been, to concentrate on the pool’s reflections. He crosses to the door and forces his way back through.

      The air has turned cooler. He puts on his sweater, eats the energy bar, drinks water from his canteen. He holds his fishing pole like a sword, slicing it through the air. Now it is dusk, and the spaces between the aspens are difficult to see; above, the yellow leaves are pale, unlit. Shadows extend darkly across the pond, threatening to seal off all reflection. He wants there to be every chance, but soon he will be unable to see; he’ll have to follow the stream through the darkness, its sound, all the way down to where his car waits.

      The black shape comes through the water like a seal, cutting smoothly beneath and not quite breaking the surface. No reflections remain, only shadows. Asada looks upward, toward the mill. The figure has returned, and the face is now more distinct; the hair is thrown back, the features clearly Asian. The arms are still held out. The edges of the shoulders begin to shiver, as if the solidity cannot be maintained, as if the whole thing might dissipate, blow away.

      And then it begins to climb through the window. Asada expects it to leap into the pool from that height, but it does not. And it does not swing a leg over the sill, but slides through headfirst. As it comes, it changes, turning fluid, seeping beyond itself. Shadowy, it twists like smoke, rolling down the stone wall, leaving wet marks in its wake, loosing tentacles and spinning them back to the center. At the bottom, the mass unfolds, never settling; it slides across the ground, into the thick bushes.

      Asada stands, holding his breath. He will not turn his back. He will not run. His ribs flex inside his chest, their cage rattling its hinges. His senses of taste and smell, his touch and hearing and sight, they are all whittled sharp.

      In a moment, the head rises above the line of bushes, on the other side of the pool, just visible against the dusk. Wavering, becoming solid, the body appears in sections, as if ascending a hidden flight of stairs. Then, feet still hidden in the underbrush, the figure starts up the slope. The legs seem to move slowly, yet the body slides smoothly along, its speed increasing. As it heads into the trees, the shadows thicken behind it.

      Asada steps quickly, his feet kicking the white stones so they skitter across each other and splash into the pool. When he reaches the aspens, he hesitates, then begins running between them, up the slope, in the direction the figure disappeared. His fishing pole rattles through low branches, snaps in half across a tree trunk; he stumbles, drops it, the line tangling and snapping, the whole thing dragging behind him and finally letting go.

      He arrives in a clearing, the ground still slanted, where trees have fallen. Rotten and hollowed trunks cross each other; dried grass pokes up between them. Asada feels that he is close. He breathes deeply, bending over, his hands on his knees. And then, inside a round knothole of one of the fallen trees, he sees what looks like fabric. Dark and wrinkled, yet not a shadow.

      He steps closer, and pushes his finger gently through the knothole. As soon as he touches the cloth, a high-pitched screaming sounds from the fallen tree. Asada stumbles backward, falling to the ground. The quiet returns, and yet, through it, there is the faint sound of scratching, of movements within the log. Asada stands, and moves carefully to the hollow end. He squints against the falling darkness.

      In a moment, a tangle of black hair begins to emerge. It is a girl, he realizes, a young woman. Loose bark falls from her hair; there’s dirt smudged on the pale skin of her face. Her features are delicate, beautiful. Slowly, she crawls from the log and stands, five feet from Asada. Her kimono is soaking wet, and so long it hides her feet. She brushes her hair from her face with long, pale fingers, and tries to smile; her expression is frightened.

      “Tadasu-san,” she says, her voice low and melodious. “Watashi ga dareka wakaranai no ne?”

      “No, I don’t recognize you,” he says.

      “Tadasu-san ga nihon wo detekara sanju-nen mo tatsu mono ne.”

      “Thirty years?” Asada hesitates, realizing that he is answering her in English. It is the language that comes first to him; she seems to understand.

      “Why did you run away?” he says. “Who are you?”

      “Sugu ni koe wo kakerare nakkatta,” she says. “Tadasu-san ni watashi no iukoto ga wakatte moraenai to omotta no.”

      “You were right,” he says. “I don’t understand.”

      “Yumi yo,” she says. “Itoko no.”

      “Why did you come to me?” he says, but she does not answer him, not right away. Instead, she begins to tell him her story. It has been thirty years since he’s seen his cousin, Yumi, and then she was a baby. That was in Japan; she stayed behind, and she is still there, she tells him now. Her body is there, but it is in a place where no one will ever find it. It is in a forest, far from any town, where no one would expect her to be. She rests in a shallow ravine, and leaves have settled on her, icy floodwaters have washed her clean. Over a year has passed since she died. Silt has thickened around her; roots have taken hold, grown straight through her. It is wonderful. As she talks, Asada watches her carefully, trying to understand. Her voice is like a song, surrounding him, like nothing he’s ever heard. He wants to reach out and touch her, but he doesn’t dare; he fears she’ll sink into the ground, or rise and dissipate through the trees’ branches. When he’d stuck his finger through the knothole, her body felt solid. Pieces of bark still hang from her hair.

      She is saying that no one in Japan knows that she is missing. She had fallen out of contact with her family—she is ashamed to tell him the details, not that they matter. She is happy now.

      “Why did you come to me?” he says again.

      “Anata ga watashi ni tottemo aitagatteta kara,” she says.

      Asada believes this—she has shown herself to him because he had wanted to see her, had needed it, more than anyone else. And he does not pull away when Yumi steps closer. As she leans against him, there is no sound, no change in sensation. The only light is from the moon. Asada turns a slow circle, his eyes searching in every direction. His arms close around himself. He is alone.

      Конец

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